2001
The last Reliant
Robin 3-wheeled car is produced [< photos >].
It used to be sold for from £8137 to £9654. It has a fiberglass body mounted
to a galvanized chassis is powered by a 850cc aluminum engine. The tiny
car, remodeled now and then, had been produced by hand for 65 years. In
the 1990s it had reached a production of 300 a week, but this had slumped
to 10 a week. 44'000 Robin Reliants are still in use on this date, almost
all of them in the UK.2000 El partido de Helmut
Kohl, la Unión Cristiana Democrática, fue obligado a pagar 18 millones de
marcos por sus irregularidades contables.

^1999
Clinton impeachment aftermath: Tripp defends her secret taping.(1) An unapologetic Linda
Tripp defends her decision to tape conversations with former White House
intern Monica Lewinsky. Tripp's appearance on "Larry King Live" is her second
broadcast appearance in four days. She gave her first in-depth interview
on NBC's 990212 "Today Show". (TRANSCRIPT)

Tripp, who made the tapes at the suggestion of New York book agent
Lucianne Goldberg, says she had "no choice"
but to "document" the conversations
in order to avoid "being set up for perjury."
"How would I prove I was telling the truth?" says Tripp. "All
I can say is Monica made choices, the president made choices and I was
forced to make choices."

With regard to President Clinton, Tripp says she is "not
an anti-Clinton zealot," but she was concerned about "a
pattern of behavior" on his part, and she believed his relationship
with Lewinsky was wrong. "The notion that I
would bastardize my values, my sense of integrity for a young woman who
I had worked with for a year and a half and commit a crime was not ever
an option," Tripp says.

Asked whether she were betraying her friend, Tripp replies that she
and Lewinsky "weren't social friends or lifelong
friends." They were work colleagues. Nonetheless, she said
she has "shed many tears" over the
relationship.

Tripp describes Lewinsky as "clever," "bright,"
and "warm" but says she was mentally
unstable and had a "different moral compass
than mine." "I thought she was troubled," she says of her
former friend.

She says she recommended a therapist for Lewinsky, but the former
intern did not follow up on it.

Lewinsky had become suicidal out of fear that the president would
learn that the former White House intern had confided their relationship
to friends, Tripp says. Lewinsky was so upset about being treated
badly by the president that she tracked down Tripp and bombarded her
with phone calls while Tripp was trying to deal with the death of
family members. "I had to explain to my
(then teen-age) children" about Lewinsky's relationship
with the president "because of the incessant
phone calls" from Lewinsky during the Christmas holiday
in 1996, Tripp says. She says Lewinsky was more upset at the thought
Clinton would find out she had shared her story with someone else
than at the thought that he was "dumping
her."

Tripp says she feels she acted properly in secretly taping Lewinsky.
"If it had only been about Monica Lewinsky and
Linda Tripp, I believe it was the right thing to do." She
says she watched Clinton forcefully deny his relationship with Lewinsky
on television, and found that moment "chilling."
Tripp adds "I knew that was precisely what Monica
would become  'that woman'"  portrayed by the
president as a stalker, and unstable.

Tripp criticizes Lewinsky's mother, Marcia Lewis, for taking the view
that her daughter's relationship with the president "was
OK; more than OK." Depicting herself as an older authority
figure for Lewinsky, Tripp says she made clear to the ex-White House intern
that "I did not think this was cool"
to be having a relationship with Clinton. Tripp says she refrained from
criticizing Lewis to Lewinsky because of the close mother-daughter relationship.

Tripp's legal bills have totaled more than $500,000, and she faces
potential criminal charges for illegally taping phone conversations in
her home state of Maryland. She is "seriously
considering" writing a book about her experiences, a project
she said she abandoned in 1996 because she was afraid of losing her job.
That book, contemplated before the Lewinsky scandal, would have dealt
with her tenure as a White House aide in the early years of the Clinton
administration. "From what I'm seeing, the truth
is just never going to get out there, so to the extent that I may decide
to let the truth come out I may show what really happened,"
says Tripp when asked about her plans for a book now. Asked whether Goldberg
would represent her, Tripp laughs and says, "I
don't know. She may not want me."

Tripp, who says she voted for George Bush for president, says she is
not part of any right-wing group or conspiracy against the president.
"I can't say that I stopped anything he may
or may not be doing right now, but I think he'll think twice about it,"
she says. And she says Clinton's behavior has harmed the country. "I
believe he tarnished the presidency," she says.

^1995
Apple licenses cloner.
Apple Computer agrees to permit Pioneer Electronic Corporation to
create Macintosh clones. This marked Apple's first licensing agreement
with a large vendor. Many industry analysts, however, thought Apple
waited too long to move. Stiff competition among IBM clones had lowered
prices, making them attractive to consumers and businesses. Apple's
global market share had dwindled from 9.6 percent in 1993 to 8.5 percent
in 1994 and the trend would continue: by 1997, the company's share
was only 4.6 percent.

^1989
Soviets complete mass withdrawal from Afghanistan The last of more than 100'000
exhausted Soviet troops leave Afghanistan under a United Nations-brokered
accord to end over a decade of bloody fighting. In 1978, a Soviet-backed
coup in Afghanistan installed a new Communist government under Nur
Mohammad Taraki. However, in 1979, a second coup toppled Taraki’s
government in favor of Hafizullah Amin, a Muslim leader less favorable
to the Soviets. In December of the same year, Soviet tanks and troops
invaded Afghanistan, but were met with unanticipated resistance from
the conservative Muslim opposition. Afghan tribesmen, calling themselves
"holy warriors," fought a fierce and bloody guerrilla war against
the Soviets. Within the USS.R.,
the Red Army’s failure to suppress to the guerillas, and the high
cost of the war in Russian lives and resources, caused significant
discord in the Communist Party and Soviet society, much as the Algerian
crisis had in France or the Vietnam War in the United States. By 1988,
Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet factions, bolstered by military arms aid
from the US and other sources, had broken the Russian resolve, and
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev accepted a U.N.-brokered agreement
calling for total Soviet military withdrawal. On February 15, 1989,
the last Soviet soldiers left Afghanistan, and, in 1991, the US and
the USS.R. signed an agreement calling for an end to all outside military
assistance to the warring factions in Afghanistan.

^1980
Bad playwright sues novelist for libel
Playwright Lillian Hellman filed a
lawsuit claming $2.2 million in damages against novelist Mary McCarthy
for libel. McCarthy, a sarcastic and critical novelist whose most
popular novel was The Group (1963), about eight Vassar graduates,
had called Hellman "a bad writer, overrated, a dishonest writer" while
appearing on a national talk show. The two writers evidently had a
long history of hostility, dating back some 30 years, when the pair
had clashed publicly at a poetry seminar at Sarah Lawrence college.
Many writers and supporters of free speech rushed to McCarthy's defense,
including an heiress who picked up McCarthy's $25'000 legal defense
fees and saved her from certain financial ruin. Hellman died before
the lawsuit came to trial, and the suit was dropped.

^1970
Chicago Eight defense attorneys sentenced
As the jury continues to deliberate in the trial of the Chicago Eight,
defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass and three
of the defendants are sentenced to prison for contempt of court. The
trial for eight antiwar activists charged with the responsibility
for the violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National
Convention took place in Chicago. The defendants included David Dellinger
of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas
Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman
and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party ("Yippies");
Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; and two lesser known activists,
Lee Weiner and John Froines. They were charged with conspiracy to
cross state lines with intent to incite a riot. Attorneys William
Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass represented all but Seale. The trial,
presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman, turned into a circus as the
defendants and their attorneys used the court as a platform to attack
Nixon, the war, racism, and oppression. Their tactics were so disruptive
that at one point, Judge Hoffman ordered Seale gagged and strapped
to his chair  Seale's disruptive behavior eventually caused
the judge to try him separately. By the time the trial ended in February
1970, Judge Hoffman had found all the defendants and their attorneys
guilty of 175 counts of contempt of court and sentenced them to terms
between two to four years. Although declaring the defendants not guilty
of conspiracy, the jury found all but Froines and Weiner guilty of
intent to riot. The others were each sentenced to five years and fined
$5,000. None served time because a 1972 Court of Appeals decision
overturned the criminal convictions; eventually, most of the contempt
charges were also dropped.

1967 Entra en vigor una nueva Constitución de Uruguay.

^1966
DeGaulle agrees to help North Vietnam end war with US. In response to a letter from
Ho Chi Minh asking that French President Charles De Gaulle use his
influence to "prevent perfidious new maneuvers" by the United States
in Southeast Asia, De Gaulle states that France is willing to do all
that it could to end the war. As outlined by De Gaulle, the French
believed that the Geneva agreements should be enforced, that Vietnam's
independence should be "guaranteed by the nonintervention of any outside
powers," and that the Vietnamese government should pursue a "policy
of strict neutrality." President Lyndon Johnson saw De Gaulle's proposal
as part of a continuing effort by the French leader to challenge US
leadership in Southeast Asia as well as in Europe. Seeing the American
commitment in Vietnam as part of a larger global issue of American
credibility, Johnson believed that the United States could not afford
to abandon its South Vietnamese ally and rejected De Gaulle's proposal
without consideration.

In accordance with a formal proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II of England,
a new Canadian national flag is raised above Parliament Hill in Ottawa,
the capital of Canada. Beginning in 1610, Lower Canada, a new British colony,
flew the Great Britain’s Union Jack, or Royal Union Flag. In 1763, as a
result of the French and Indian Wars, France lost its sizeable colonial
possessions in Canada and the Union Jack flew all across the wide territory
of Canada.

In 1867, the Dominion
of Canada was established as a self-governing federation within the British
Empire, and three years later a new flag, the Canadian Red Ensign, was adopted.
It became official on 2 February 1892 [top >] On
26 April 1922 the shield was changed [middle >]. On 8 October
1957 the three maple leaves at the bottom of the shield were changed from
green to red [bottom >]. Besides
these official flags there have been a number of unofficial ones.

The search for a new national flag,
that would better represent an independent Canada, began in earnest in 1925
when a committee of the Privy Council began to investigate possible designs
for a new flag. Later, in 1946, a select parliamentary committee was appointed
with a similar mandate and examined more than 2600 submissions. Agreement
on a new design was not reached, and it was not until the 1960s, with the
centennial of Canadian self-rule approaching, that the Canadian Parliament
intensified its efforts to choose a new flag. In December of 1964, Parliament
voted to adopt a new design. Canada’s national flag was to be red and white,
the official colors of Canada as decided by King George V of Britain in
1921, with a stylized eleven-point red maple leaf in its center. Queen Elizabeth
II proclaimed February 15, 1965, as the day in which the new flag would
be raised over Parliament Hill and adopted by all Canadians. Today, Canada’s
red maple leaf flag is one of the most recognizable national flags in the
world.

^1950
USSR and Communist China sign mutual defense treaty The Soviet Union and the People's
Republic of China, the two largest communist nations in the world,
announce the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty. The
negotiations for the treaty were conducted in Moscow between PRC leaders
Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Foreign
Minister Andrei Vishinsky. The treaty's terms called for the Soviets
to provide a $300 million credit to the PRC. It also mandated that
the Soviet Union return to the Chinese the control of a major railroad
and the cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria, all of which
had been seized by Russian forces near the end of World War II. The
mutual defense section of the agreement primarily concerned any future
aggression by Japan and "any other state directly or indirectly associated"
with Japan. Zhou En-lai proudly declared that the linking of the two
communist nations created a force that was "impossible to defeat."
US commentators viewed the treaty as proof positive that communism
was a monolithic movement, being directed primarily from the Kremlin
in Moscow. An article in the New York Times referred to the PRC as
a Soviet "satellite." As events made clear, however, the treaty was
not exactly a concrete bond between communist countries. By the late-1950s,
fissures were already beginning to appear in the Soviet-PRC alliance.
Publicly, the Chinese charged that the Soviets were compromising the
principles of Marxism-Leninism by adopting an attitude of "peaceful
coexistence" with the capitalist nations of the West. By the early-1960s,
Mao Zedong was openly declaring that the Soviet Union was actually
allying itself with the United States against the Chinese revolution.

^1942 Singapore surrenders to the Japanese
Britain's supposedly impregnable Singapore
fortress surrenders to Japanese forces after a weeklong siege. More than
60'000 British, Australian, and Indian soldiers were taken prisoner, joining
70'000 other Allied soldiers captured during Britain's disastrous defense
of the Malay Peninsula. On 08 December 1941, the day after Japan bombed
Pearl Harbor, the Japanese moved against British-controlled Malay, steamrolling
across Thailand and landing in northern Malay. The Japanese made rapid advances
against British positions, capturing British airfields and gaining air superiority.
British General Arthur E. Percival [26 Dec 1887 – 31 Jan 1966] was
reluctant to leave Malay's roads and thus was outflanked again and again
by the Japanese, who demonstrated an innovative grasp of the logistics of
jungle warfare. The Allies could do little more than delay the Japanese
and continued to retreat south. By January, the Allied force was outnumbered
and held just the lower half of the peninsula. The 25th Army of General
Tomoyuki Yamashita [08 Nov 1885 – 23 Feb 1946] continued to push forward,
and on 31 January 1942 the Allies were forced to retreat across the causeway
over the Johor Strait to the great British naval base on the island of Singapore,
located on the southern tip of the peninsula. The British dynamited the
causeway behind them but failed to entirely destroy the bridge. Singapore,
with its big defensive guns, was considered invulnerable to attack. However,
the guns, which used armor-piercing shells and the flat trajectories necessary
to decimate an enemy fleet, were not designed to defend against a land attack
on the unfortified northern end of the island.
On 05 February Yamashita brought up heavy siege guns to the tip of the peninsula
and began bombarding Singapore. On 08 February, thousands of Japanese troops
began streaming across the narrow waterway and established several bridgeheads.
Japanese engineers quickly repaired the causeway, and troops, tanks, and
artillery began pouring on to Singapore. The Japanese pushed forward to
Singapore city, capturing key British positions and splitting the Allied
defenders into isolated groups. On
15 February Percival, lacking a water supply and nearly out of food and
ammunition, agreed to surrender. With the loss of Singapore, the British
lost control of a highly strategic waterway and opened the Indian Ocean
to Japanese invasion. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it
the "worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history." Many thousands
of the 130'000 Allied troops captured died in Japanese captivity. Later
in the war, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the supreme Allied commander in Southeast
Asia, made plans for the liberation of the Malay Peninsula, but Japan surrendered
before they could be carried out. Singapore,
the "Gibraltar of the East" and a strategic British stronghold, falls to
Japanese forces. An island city and the capital of the Straits Settlement
of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore had been a British colony since the 19th
century. In July 1941, when Japanese troops occupied French Indochina, the
Japanese telegraphed their intentions to transfer Singapore from the British
to its own burgeoning empire. Sure enough, on the eve of the Pearl Harbor
attack, 24'000 Japanese soldiers were transported from Indochina to the
Malay Peninsula, and Japanese fighter pilots attacked Singapore, killing
61 civilians from the air. The battle between Japanese and British forces
on the Malay Peninsula continued throughout December and January, killing
hundreds more civilians in the process. The British were forced to abandon
and evacuate many of their positions, including Port Swettenham and Kuala
Lumpur. On 08 February 1942, 5000 Japanese
soldiers landed on Singapore Island. The British were both outmanned and
outgunned. Pro-Japanese propaganda leaflets were dropped on the islands,
encouraging surrender. On 13 February 1942 Singapore's 15-inch coastal guns
 the island's main defensive weapons  were destroyed. Tactical
miscalculations on the part of British Gen. Arthur Percival and poor communication
between military and civilian authorities exacerbated the deteriorating
British defense. Represented by General Percival and senior Allied officers,
Singapore surrendered to Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita in front of Japanese
newsreel cameras. Sixty-two thousand Allied soldiers were taken prisoner;
more than half eventually died as prisoners of war. With the surrender of
Singapore, Britain lost its foothold in the East. British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill attempted to prop up morale by urging Brits "to display
the calm and poise, combined with grim determination, which not so long
ago brought us out of the very jaws of death."

^1934
Civil Works Emergency Relief Act To
fight the Depression, US President Franklin Roosevelt calls on Congress
to establish a Federal institution for helping the needy. The result
was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which funneled
money to states and oversaw the subsequent distribution and relief
efforts. FERA was a massive and costly project: the administration
spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion a year, or nearly
2 percent of America's income. FERA needed a steady supply of capital
and Congress was willing to oblige; on this day in 1934 legislators
passed the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, which provided an infusion
of funds for the administration.

^1933
Bullet intended for US President-elect mortally wounds Chicago mayor.
Giuseppe Zangara tries to assassinate
President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Miami, Florida. However,
Zangara's shots missed the soon-to-be president (inaugurations did
not take place until March at the time) and hit Anton Cernak, the
mayor of Chicago. Cernak was seriously wounded and died on 06 March.
Immediately after Mayor Cernak died from the gunshot wounds, Zangara
was indicted and arraigned for murder. He pleaded guilty and died
in the electric chair on 20 March, only two weeks after Cernak died.
Today such a swift outcome would be
practically unheard of, particularly where the death penalty is concerned.
Changes began in the 1950s. In the most notable case, Caryl Chessman
spent almost 12 years on California's death row before going to the
gas chamber in 1960 for kidnapping. His appeals kept him alive while
he wrote three published books and caught the attention of Hollywood
and the international community, who lobbied publicly on his behalf.
The Chessman battle did more than any other case to politicize the
death penalty; some credit it with bringing Ronald Reagan (who fiercely
opposed commuting Chessman's sentence) to office as California's governor.
Chessman was one of the last persons to be executed in the US for
committing a crime other than murder.

^1812
Furrier Wilson Hunt arrives at Astoria, Oregon.
Having departed St. Louis more than
two years earlier, Wilson Hunt and his party stumble into the fur-trading
post of Astoria, Oregon. Later romanticized as the archetypal frontier
hero in Washington Irving's novel Astoria, which chronicled the early
Far West fur trade, Wilson Hunt was actually a reluctant mountain
man. Born in Asbury, New Jersey, in 1783, Hunt was interested in making
money, not exploring vast reaches of unknown wilderness. Hunt recognized
that the West offered untapped potential wealth for the crafty merchant,
and in 1804 he moved to St. Louis where he opened a mercantile establishment.
There he caught the eye of the German immigrant John Jacob Astor,
who was looking for ambitious young merchants to help launch an American
fur-trading operation on the Pacific Coast. Like Astor, Hunt realized
there was big money to be made in the western fur trade. When Astor
asked him to lead an overland expedition to the mouth of the Columbia
River to establish a fur-trading post, he agreed despite his lack
of experience in wilderness travel. With a small party of other Astor
employees, Hunt departed St. Louis on October 21, 1810, and headed
up the Missouri along the route blazed by Lewis and Clark five years
earlier. Historians have often
criticized Hunt's leadership of the overland voyage. The inexperienced
Hunt certainly made a number of blunders, such as losing the party's
horses while attempting to cross the treacherous Snake River. Yet,
Washington Irving and others have suggested that Hunt made the best
of difficult circumstances, and he was a cool and competent leader.
At the very least, Hunt deserves credit for blazing a route between
the Snake River and Columbia River that eventually became a part of
the Oregon Trail. On this day in 1812, Hunt and his party finally
reached the newly founded town of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia
River, about 100 km northwest of modern-day Portland. An ocean-going
party of Astor employees had arrived there nearly a year before and
constructed the fur-trading post. Hunt remained at the post until
1814, when it was sold to the British, who had occupied the territory
since the War of 1812. Giving up the fur trade, Hunt returned to St.
Louis, where he prospered in business and real estate and eventually
won the job of city postmaster. The remainder of Hunt's life was marked
by none of the excitement he endured during his epic transcontinental
journey, and the reluctant mountain man apparently preferred it that
way.

^1794 Le drapeau français tricolore est décrèté.
En France, la Convention nationale «décrète
qu’à compter du 1er prairial an II (20 mai 1794), le pavillon sera formé
des trois couleurs nationales disposées en trois bandes égales posées verticalement,...»
C'est la naissance du drapeau tricolore. Celui-ci est confirmé comme étendard
national en 1812, quand Napoléon 1er décide que tous les régiments auront
un drapeau bleu-blanc-rouge. Les trois
couleurs remontent aux origines de l'Histoire. Le fameux roi Dagobert, descendant
de Clovis, avait pris l'habitude d'arborer la bannière de Saint Denis, rouge
du sang du martyr, dans les heures de grand péril. Cette tradition fut reprise
mille ans plus tard par les révolutionnaires parisiens de sorte que le drapeau
rouge devint le symbole mondial des luttes ouvrières.
Le blanc était la couleur d'une écharpe que les chefs des armées sous la
monarchie pour signaler leur grade. C'est seulement en 1815, sous la Restauration,
qu'il devint le symbole de la monarchie. On repère le bleu dans les couleurs
des bourgeois de Paris, au Moyen Âge, en association avec le rouge. Les
couleurs bleu, blanc et rouge commencent d'émerger sous le règne d'Henri
IV. Le «Vert-Galant» recommande ces trois couleurs aux ambassadeurs hollandais
qui en font l'emblème de leur Marine puis de leur nation, jusqu'à nos jours.
Le tsar Pierre 1er le Grand, de passage à Amsterdam, adopte les mêmes couleurs
pour ses navires. C'est ainsi que le bleu, le blanc et le rouge se retrouvent
sur le drapeau de la Russie impériale... et de la Russie actuelle. Émules
des Russes, les Serbes les adoptent à leur tour. Elles figurent aujourd'hui
sur le drapeau de la Yougoslavie.
En France même, le régiment des Gardes françaises avait adopté les trois
couleurs et les conserva en passant du côté de la Révolution sous le nom
de Garde nationale. Le 17 juillet 1789, Louis XVI est accueilli à l'Hôtel
de Ville par une foule arborant une cocarde aux couleurs de Paris, le bleu
et le rouge. La Fayette remet alors au roi en personne une cocarde semblable
où il insère le blanc. Devenu chef de la Garde nationale le 31 juillet 1789,
il officialise la cocarde tricolore en la remettant solennellement à la
municipalité de Paris. «Je vous apporte une cocarde qui fera le tour du
monde,...» dit-il. Il ne croyait pas si bien dire. The Oriflamme The oriflamme was a sacred banner
used by the kings of France in the middle ages in times of great danger.
It was distinct from the heraldic banner of the French kings (semis of fleur-de-lys
on azure, as expected). Its history is fairly continuous from 1124 onward,
when it is first mentioned. It is first described in 1225. It consists of
two parts: a gilded lance, to which is attached a silk banner, red with
green fringes. The floating end of the banner splits into two or more trailing
strips. The name, aurea flamma, conflates the banner (flamma) and the color
of the lance. The banner is sometimes represented as attached vertically
to the lance, and sometimes (especially in the 19th century) as attached
to a horizontal bar, itself suspended from the lance. It was deposited in
the abbey of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, where kings of France were buried,
next to the relics of Denis who evangelized the area. When going to war,
the French king would come to Saint-Denis to 'raise the banner'. The last
time it was raised was in the late 15th century. It was destroyed during
the Revolution. What was its origin? The 1124 text mentions an old tradition
of the counts of Vexin, who were protectors of the abbey; the kings of France
had become counts of Vexin in 1077. But the text also alludes to a tradition
specific to the kings of France. Also, a late 11th-century text, the Gesta
of Roland, calls Charlemagne's emblem or banner orie flambe, but does not
describe it. A description of the siege of Paris by the Normans in 885 mentions
a large saffron-colored banner with large indentations carried by a double
lance. One author tries to link the oriflamme to Charlemagne's lance and
through it all the way back to Constantine's labarum, which was taken from
a pagan sanctuary located near modern Saint-Denis. (Constantine's lance
was part of the regalia of the German emperors, and is now in Vienna). The
idea is that the sacred object was the lance itself, decorated with a silk
fanion, but later the meaning of the lance was lost and the silk fanion
itself came to be seen as the important object. The Fleur-de-lysée
banner (France Ancient)[below, left]
The Azur, Semé de lis Or made its first royal appearance on Louis VIII's
seal, but we know that Philip II (1180-1223) already used it on his banners;
his cloak was blue, embroidered with golden lilies (to recall the stars
of heaven: it was actually called the "cosmic cloak"). Besides, the stylized
lis pattern could be found on coins of the times of Louis VI (1081-1137)
and Louis VII (1120-1180).The banner with three fleur de
lys (France Modern)[second flag below]
Charles V modified the arms of France in 1365 to honor the Holy Trinity.
The modification was adopted progressively: Charles VI (1368-1422) used
the old disposition, called France Ancient, on his counter seal, but also
used France Modern on every other occasion. Nevertheless, it is considered
that Charles V made the first official use of France Modern (Only three
Fleurs de lys).The Flag over the Bastille
The third flag below (with the yellow diagonal)
that it is the flag flown over the Bastille on 14 July 1789 by the defenders
of the royal fortress.
The Flag of the Restauration 1814-1830.
When the Bourbons returned in 1814 they brought back the White Flag with
the semy de lys as national flag [last flag below]. The revolution
of 1830 overthrew them, and the new, relatively liberal regime of Louis-Philippe
hastened to adopt the Tricolore again. It never ceased to be the French
flag since that date, through all the regime changes.

2004
A Kurd, by gunmen in a car shooting at passers-by, in Kirkuk, Iraq,
in the evening.

2004:: 39 women in fire in village
Wufeng, near Haining, Zheijiang province, China, in a 60-square-meter thatched
bamboo hut, crowded with villagers engaged in “superstitious activities”,
as the Communist government calls the traditional folk religion it has banned
since it seized power in 1949. 6 persons are injured, one of whom dies the
next day. The authorities blame the fire on incense offerings. An eyewitness
says that it was started by the cigarette of a woman smoking outside.2004 Some 53 persons in fire which started at 03:20 UT
in Jilin, China, on the 2nd floor of the 4-storey Zhongbai Commercial Plaza,
which contained 111 shops, a dancing hall, and a bath house. 71 persons
are injured.

2003
Israelis Pvt. 1st Class Noam Bahagon, 20, from
Elkana; Sgt. Alexei Bilitzky, 21, from Rishon Letzion;
Staff Sgt. Doron Cohen, 21, from Rishon Letzion; and Sgt.
Itai Mirzahi, 20, from Be'er Sheva [photos >];
killed 1 km SE of the Dugit enclave settlement in the Gaza Strip at 08:31
(06:31 UT). when their patrolling Magach 7-Kfir (US-built M~60?) tank drives
over a 100-kg improvised mine which the Iz al-Kassam organization of Hamas
planted to avenge the deaths of two Hamas activists killed near Beit Lahia
in fight with Israeli troops a few days earlier. The explosion causes the
tank's ammunition to explode and fire to engulf it. The tank was preceded
by an armored bulldozer which failed to detonate the device. The Reuters
body count of the al-Aqsa intifada is now “at least” 1829 Palestinians
and 705 Israelis.

2002
Israeli Staff Sgt. Lee Nahman Akonis, 20, [< photo]
shot at close range by a group of Palestinians while he was guarding, with
two others, the Surda checkpoint just north of Ramallah, West Bank.2002 Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Eyal Weiss, 34, by the
collapse of a Palestinian home which his troops were destroying in the early
morning in the village Saida, near Tul Karm, West Bank. Weiss commanded
the Duvdevan elite undercover unit, whose members often enter
Palestinian territories in disguise to arrest suspected militants. According
to the Israelis Weiss led troops on a manhunt for terrorists in the village.
The head of Islamic Jihad in the region, Jasser Ghdad, barricaded himself
in his home and exchanged fire with the troops. An Israeli bulldozer began
to demolish the house, causing Ghdad to hand over his weapons and give himself
up. Weiss interrogated Ghdad on the other side of the road, behind a concrete
wall. The bulldozer continued to tear down the house [no explanation as
to why, after Ghdad has surrendered], some 20 meters from where Weiss was
standing, when a part of the house was fell to the other side of the road,
hit the concrete wall and caused parts of the wall to collapse on Weiss.
2002 Anwar Abd al Rani, 28, Islamic Jihad militant,
by the troops of Israeli Lt. Col. Weiss [see above] in incursion into Saida,
near Tul Karm, West Bank.. 2001 Nasser Hassanat,
23, Palestinian, was killed in a firefight with Israeli soldiers, as he
was trying to enter Jewish settlement Kfar Darom. Hassanat, from the Deir
El Balah refugee camp, was not in uniform, but carried documents identifying
him as a member of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service.1999
Carole Sund, 42, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, murdered in the evening
by Cary Stayner, 38. Silvina Pelosso, of Argentina, and Carole Sund and
her daughter Juli Sund, 15, of Eureka, were staying in Room 509 of the Cedar
Lodge rustic motel, outside Yosemite National Park. Stayner worked as a
handyman at the motel. Stayner had fantasized for months about sexually
assaulting girls and then killing them. This night he sees what he calls
easy prey through the open blinds of Room 509. He goes to his
room and gets his killing kit: duct tape, rope, a knife and
a gun. He get into Room 509 by pretending to check for a gas leak. He binds
and gags the two girls in the bathroom, then strangles Carole Sund and puts
her body in their rental car trunk. Then he strangles Silvina and puts her
body in the trunk. Early the next day ...[continued
on 16 February]1999 Cinco civiles en un ataque
aéreo de Estados Unidos contra Irak.^1996
Ernst Weber, microwave communication pioneer
Ernst Weber conducted important experiments in the field of microwave communications
for the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II.
He developed devices for the precise control of microwaves, which proved
useful in early radar testing. Later, he became president of the Polytechnic
Institute in New York City, which he helped transform into a leading scientific
and engineering center.
1988 Richard
Feynman, mathematician. premio Nobel de Física 19651988 José Luis Cano, poeta español.1982:
84 personas al hundirse una plataforma petrolífera frente a las
costas de Terranova. 1975 Pelham G Wodehouse writer.1970 Carlos Cruz, Juan Ramón Loubriel, and all the other
95 passengers and 5 crew members aboard a DC-9 jetliner (registration
#HI-177) of Dominicana de Aviación, which had taken off from Las
Americas International Airport in Punta Caucedo, near Santo Domingo, at
18:30 for a 45-minute flight to Puerto Rico. At 18:32, the plane loses power
in its right engine. But, during the turn for an emergency landing, the
left engine also loses power, and the plane crashes into the Caribbean.
The power loss is due to contaminated fuel. Former world boxing champion
Carlos
Cruz [04 Nov 1937–], accompanied by his family, was flying to
San Juan for a rematch against Carlos
Ortiz [09 Sep 1936~]. Loubriel, who participated in three professional
sports leagues in Puerto Rico(basketball, volleyball and association football)
was with most of the members of Puerto Rico's women's national volleyball
team, returning home after a friendly game against the Dominican Republic's
women's national team.1967 J. Frank Duryea, 97,
in Old Saybrook, Conneticut, founder of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company with
his brother Charles. 74 years earlier in the month of February, the Duryea
brothers manufactured the first of thirteen Duryea Motor Wagons, unofficially
giving birth to the auto production line and the US automobile industry.

1940 Toeplitz,
mathematician.1939 Kuzma Sergeyevich Petrov~Vodkin,
Russian painter born on 25 October 1878.  MORE
ON PETROV~VODKIN AT ART 4 FEBRUARY
with links to images.1939 Henri Jaspar, 68, premier
of Belgium (1926-1931)1935 Pierre-Paulin
Andrieu, French, born on 08 December 1849; ordained a Catholic
priest on 29 May 1874; appointed Bishop of Marseille on 18 April 1901, consecrated
a bishop on 25 July 1901; made a cardinal on 16 December 1907; appointed
Archbishop of Bordeaux on 02 January 1909.1934 Jules Alexandre
Grün, French painter, illustrator, and poster artist, born
on 26 May 1868.  MORE
ON GRÜN AT ART 4 FEBRUARY
with links to images.1928 Jacob Smits, Dutch Belgian
painter born on 09 July 1856. — more
with link to an image.1907 Giosué Carducci, poeta
italiano. 1900 John
Walker, mathematician

^1898:
266 sailors aboard USS Maine as it explodes in Havana.
An explosion sinks the battleship USS.
Maine (built
at a cost of more than two million dollars)[< photo]
in the Havana,
Cuba harbor, killing 266 of the 354 crew
members. The sinking of the Maine incited United States
passions against Spain, eventually leading to a naval blockade of
Cuba and to the start of the Spanish-American
War by the end of April. Le
Maine saute mystérieusement en rade de la Havane. La capitale
cubaine est espagnole depuis l'arrivée de Christophe Colomb en 1492.
L'explosion du Maine est le signal de la guerre hispano-américaine,
qui se terminera par le départ des espagnols. c'est pour Cuba une
libération, car les occupants se sont toujours conduits en maître
impitoyables, infligeant aux cubains des traitements contre lesquels
s'étaient élevés les États Unis.
A massive explosion of unknown origin sinks the battleship USS
Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 266 of the 354 American
crewmembers. One of the first American battleships, the Maine
weighed over 6000 tons and was built at a cost of more than two million
dollars. Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been
sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after a rebellion
against Spanish rule broke out in Havana in January.
An official US naval court of inquiry reports on 28 March that the
ship had been blown up by a mine without laying blame on any person
or nation in particular. However, an outraged American public overwhelmingly
blames Cuba’s Spanish occupation force. Subsequent diplomatic failures
to resolve the Maine matter, coupled with US indignation
over Spain’s brutal suppression of the Cuban rebellion and continued
losses to American investment, lead to the outbreak of the Spanish-American
War in April of 1898. Within three months, the United States has decisively
defeated Spanish forces on land and at sea, and on 12 August an armistice
is signed. On 12 December 1898, the Treaty of Paris is signed between
the US and Spain, officially ending the Spanish-American war and granting
the United States its first overseas empire with the ceding of former
Spanish possessions such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
Conséquences dramatiques de l'explosion du Maine Le cuirassé américain Maine
est victime d'une explosion (accidentelle?) dans la rade de La Havane,
à Cuba. Les Américains saisissent ce prétexte pour déclarer la guerre
aux Espagnols qui gouvernent l'île avec une grande brutalité. Depuis
plusieurs années, les colonisateurs font face à une insurrection des
Cubains. Celle-ci a le soutien intéressé des hommes d'affaires américains
qui ont beaucoup investi à Cuba et rêvent d'en évincer la vieille
puissance coloniale. De son côté, le magnat de la presse Randolph
Hearst désire relancer ses ventes de journaux. Il monte une violente
campagne. Le président William McKinley se laisse sans trop de mal
entraîner à la guerre. L'Espagne
est défaite en quelques semaines et les Etats-Unis la remplacent
comme puissance tutélaire à Cuba et dans quelques autres colonies.
Avec un peu de retard sur les Européens, les Etats-Unis s'engagent
dans une politique de conquêtes qui mènera les uns et les autres à
la tragédie de 1914-1918.

1954
Matt Groening, cartoonist.1939 Isaías Duarte
Cancino, in San Gil, Colombia. He would study for the priesthood
at the Gregorian University in Rome, while living at the Seminario Pio Latino
Americano, and be ordained a priest in Rome on 01 December 1963. He would
be appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Bucaramanga on 10 April 1985 and be consecrated
a bishop on 17 June 1985. He would be appointed Bishop of Apartadó
on 18 June 1988 and Archbishop of Cali on 19 August 1995. He was murdered
on 16 March 2002.1935 Roger Chaffee, US astronaut
who died in the 27 January 1967 Apollo fire.1935
Susan Brownmiller, author 1929 James Schlesinger
US Secretary of Defense (1973-1975) 1927 Carlo
Maria Martini SJ, who would be ordained a Jesuit priest on
13 July 1952, appointed on 29 December 1979 archbishop of Milan, Italy,
consecrated bishop on 06 January 1980, made cardinal on 02 February 1982,
retire as archbishop on 11 July 2002..

1898 Conrado Nalé Roxlo, poeta, humorista y escritor argentino.1894 Oswaldo Aranha Brazil, lawyer/statesman (first President
of UN) 1892 James Forrestal, US banker, Secretary
of Defense, who died on 22 May 1949. 1882 Koebe,
mathematician.1863 Pietro Scoppetta,
Italian artist who died on 09 February 1920. 1861 Alfred
North Whitehead, English mathematician
and philosopher
who died on 30 December 1947 (Adventures of Ideas)  WHITEHEAD ONLINE:
A
treatise on universal algebra1853 Eduard
Schleich II, German artist who died on 28 October 1893.
1845 Elihu Root (R)/US Secretary of State (1905-09)/Nobel Peace
Prize (1912) 1839 Zeuthen,
mathematician. 1839 Adolph
Mayer, mathematician.

^1836
Second Bank of US is chartered.
Nicholas Biddle obtained a Pennsylvania charter for the ever-controversial
second Bank of the United States. The move was a sad admission of
defeat for Biddle, the embattled chief of the bank who had waged war
against President Andrew Jackson throughout the early 1830s to preserve
the institution's Federal status. Indeed, Biddle had legitimized the
bank, transforming what, in the years immediately following its initial
charter in 1816, was a seeming failure, into a viable, and even prosperous
institution. But, Biddle could not fend off President Andrew Jackson,
who bitterly opposed the concept of a Federal banking system. The
president marshaled fierce attacks against Biddle's bank, cutting
off the government's flow of deposits, as well as transferring Federal
funds to various state banks. Biddle's supporters in the House, including
members of the Whig party and other anti-Jacksonian forces, howled
in protest and successfully pushed for the passage of a censure of
the president (the resolution was later stripped from the Senate records).
However, Jackson was simply too powerful an opponent and, when the
bank's national charter expired in 1836, he successfully blocked Biddle's
renewal efforts. The bank struggled on in Pennsylvania for a few years,
before bad investments and mismanagement forced it to shut down in
1841.

^1835
Alexander Stewart Webb, future Union General.
Webb is born in New York City. Webb's
grandfather had fought at Bunker Hill during the US War of Independence,
and his father, James Watson Webb, was a prominent newspaper editor
and diplomat who served as minister to Brazil during the Civil War.
The younger Webb, known as Andy to his family, attended West Point
and graduated in 1855, 13th in a class of 34. He taught mathematics
at West Point and in Florida before the Civil War. When the war broke
out, Webb was assigned to defend Ft. Pickens, Florida, but was soon
called to Washington and placed in the artillery in the army guarding
the capital. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861
as assistant to the chief of artillery, Major William Barry.
A year later, Webb was in charge of
the artillery at the Battle of Malvern Hill at the end of the Seven
Days battles. In that engagement, Union cannon devastated attacking
Confederate infantry, and Webb was commended for leading the artillery
line. General Daniel Butterfield later said that Webb's leadership
saved the Union army from destruction. Despite his numerous achievements,
Webb was constantly passed over for promotion due to politics within
the Army of the Potomac. He was closely associated with General George
McClellan, and McClellan's removal in late 1862 left Webb stalled
at colonel. Even some of his West Point students became generals before
Webb, but the promotion finally came in June 1863.
The new brigadier general played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg
just a few weeks later. On 03 July, Webb commanded troops defending
the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. He rallied his troops
as they received the brunt of Pickett's Charge, and his actions earned
him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Webb fought with the Army of
the Potomac during the great campaign in the spring of 1864, and he
was wounded in the head at the Bloody Angle, the most vicious fighting
in the Battle of Spotsylvania. He was out of action for nearly eight
months. When he returned, he became chief of staff for army commander
General George Meade. After the war, Webb taught at West Point, served
as president of the College of the City of New York, and wrote extensively
about the war. He died in Riverdale, New York, in 1911. A statue of
Webb adorns the Gettysburg battlefield near the spot where he earned
the Medal of Honor.

1834 Paul Camille Guigou, French artist
who died on 21 December 1871. more
with links to images.

^1834
William Henry Preece, telephone innovator
A Welsh electrical engineer, Preece played an important role in the
introduction of the wireless telegraph and telephone in Great Britain.
As an engineer for the Post Office, he introduced numerous inventions,
including a railroad signal and his own wireless telephone. Preece
also introduced Alexander Graham Bell's telephone to Great Britain.
Perhaps most importantly, Preece helped radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi
attain the Post Office's assistance for his work on the wireless telegraph-later
known as radio

1823 Li Hung-Tshang Chinese rebel leader/viceroy of Tsheli
Canton 1820 Susan Brownell Anthony, Adams MA, co-founder
of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She died on 13 March 1906.1817 Charles-François Daubigny, Parisian Barbizon
School painter and printmaker, who died on 19 February 1878. 
MORE
ON DAUBIGNY AT ART 4 FEB 19
with links to images.

^1812
Charles Lewis Tiffany, in Killingly, Connecticut.
Tiffany headed to New York in 1837,
where he and partner John B. Young opened a stationery and fancy goods
shop. However, political upheaval in Europe in 1848 caused the prices
of precious stones to plummet, giving Tiffany a perfect, and profitable,
opening into the jewelry business. He snapped up a passel of suddenly
cheap diamonds, including a few of the French Crown Jewels, which
he later sold for a tidy sum, prompting the press to dub Tiffany "The
King of Diamonds." Around the same time, Tiffany set about manufacturing
gold jewelry. He moved rapidly to expand his business, acquiring John
C. Moore’s leading silver operations in 1851. Two years later, Tiffany
assumed complete control of the company and re-christened it "Tiffany
& Co." During the ensuing years, he opened Tiffany branches around
the world and produced special items for luminaries like First Lady
Mary Todd Lincoln. By the time Tiffany died in 1902, his company and
its products were firmly entrenched as enduring vestiges of high culture.

MAKE-OVER
An Amish boy and his father were visiting a near-by mall. They were amazed
by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver wall
panels moved apart and back together again by themselves. The lad asked
his Father, What is this, father? The father (never having seen
an elevator) responded, I have never seen anything like this in my
life. I don't know what it is. While the boy and his father were watching
wide-eyed, an old lady in a wheel chair rolled up to the moving panels and
pressed a button. The panels opened and the lady rolled between them into
a small room. The panels closed and the boy and his father watched small
circles of lights with numbers above the panels light up. The panels opened
up again and a beautiful twenty-four-year-old woman stepped out. The Father
looked at his son and said, Go get your mother.

Thoughts for the day:“Decide to take unconditionally
the side against suicide, homicide, genocide, patricide, matricide, infanticide,
uxoricide, fratricide, sororicide, regicide, megalocide, spermicide, even
tyrannicide and verbicide; and, with due moderation and precautions, the
side for germicide, microbicide, bactericide, pesticide, insecticide, raticide,
herbicide, algicide.”
“Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. ”
— Groucho Marx [02 Oct 1890 – 19 Aug 1977]